All Platform Outline Pack (UE4)

Applying Different Line Types

Line types

The pack provides diverse types of lines. We provide screen-space (SS) and world-space (WS) lines. The screen-space lines have the fixed line width in the screen. That is, regardless of the depth of objects (i.e., regardless of the object size shown in the screen), the line width remains the same in the screen. In contrast, the world-space lines have the fixed line width in the world space. That is, when the object is zoomed-out, the lines become thin. When the object is zoomed-in, the lines become thick. But the ratio between the outline and non-outline parts is always fixed, so the appearance of the object isn’t much changed by the object depth change.

Each space line type divides into opaque and glow lines. And each of them divides into three line thicknesses, And each thickness line type divides into four line colors.

The material instances for those line types are in the subfolders in the Content/Materials folder: SSGlow, SSOpaqueNormal, SSOpaqueThick, SSOpaqueThin, WSGlow, WSOpaqueNormal, WSOpaqueThick, WSOpaqueThin.

Changing the line type of an object

Changing line types can be done by changing the material of the added blueprint actor component. To do so, first select the actor to change the line type, and then select the actor component (in the below image, BP_APOP_Outline), then change the line material in the Outline – Line Material slot (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Changing the line material of the blueprint actor component

Making custom line types

Making custom line type can be done by duplicating the existing line type material instance (e.g., MI_APOP_SS_Opaque_Normal_Black) and change the parameter of the instance. In the below image, we duplicated the MI_APOP_SS_Opaque_Normal_Black, and changed its name to MI_APOP_SS_Opaque_VeyThick_Yellow. Then we changed the line color and width (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Changing material instance parameters to make a custom line type